The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-07-09
THE STORY OF A BEGGAR.
BY MARION CRAWFORD.

many mlSIOrJuEe6, many troubles. many
pains had had their will of his racked
body; many days and years of suffering
had piled their load upon his aching
shoulders; grief knew him and tracked
him down; and sorrow, the pitiless driver
of men, had stung each CALLED wound of
his soul with cunning cruelty, goading
and sparing not as he came near to the
end. The silver hairs were few which
hung struggling from beneath the torn
brim of his battered hat, and the burrows
were many and deep upon his colorless
face. His dim eyes peered from their
worn and sunken sockets as though still
family striving, striving to the very last,
to understand those things which it was
not given him to understand. Feebly
his two hands clasped his crooked staff,
road-worn and splintered by the hints;
upon one foot still chung the fragments
of shoe, the other had no shoe at all;
and as he stood he lifted the foot which
was bare and tried to rest it upon the
scanty bit Of dusty leather which only
half covered the other, as though to ease
it from the cruel road, while he steadied
himself feebly with his stick. Had there
been the least fragment of wall near
him, bit of fence, even tree, he would
have tried to lean upon it; but there was
nothing-nothing but the broad finty
road, with the ditch dug deep upon each
side; nothing but the cold grey sky; the
black north wind which began to whirl
up the dust, scattering here and there
big flakes of wet snow; and far away be-
hind, the barking Of the dogs that had
driven him from the gate while the
churls who fingered there after their
days work laughed and made rough
jokes upon him. A little boy, the son of
one of these fellows had taken stone,
and had thrown it after the old mantle
missile had struck him in the back and
he had bowed himself lower and limped
away; he was used to it-people often
threw stones at him, and sometimes they
hit him. What was one blow more to
him, one wound more? The end could
not be far.
So he rested his naked foot upon the
other, now that he was out of the reach
of harm. He could hear the dogs bark
ing still, but dogs never chased him far
they would not come after him now. The
boy could not throw stones to such dis
lance either, and would not take the
trouble to pursue him, though one of the
men had laughed when the old man was
hit, and another had said it was q good
shot. He might rest for while-if it we're
rest to lean upon his staff and feel the bit
ter wind driving the snowhakes through
the rents in his clothing, and whirling up
the half frozen flint dust to his sore and
weary eyes. The night was coming on.
He would have to sleep in ditch. 1t
would not be the first time-if only he
could get mile or two further, he might
find some bit of arched bridge across the
ditch which would shelter him, or stone
wall or even perhaps, a farmhouse, where
he should not be stoned from the door,
and might be suffered to sleep upon the
straw in an clubhouse. Such luck as that
was rare indeed; and the mere thought
OF the straw, the pitiful dream that if he
could struggle little further he might
get shelter from the wind and snow, was
enough to bring some thing like shadowy
look of hope into his wretched face. With
q great effort he began to walk again
bending low to face the blast, starving,
lame, and aching in every bone, but strug-
Cling still and peering through the gather
ing gloom in the vain hope of finding
nights resting place. Well, he struggled
on; but the end was at hand. The road
grew worse for it had been mended, and
the small broken stones lay thick togeth-
er, rough and bristling. He could hard
ly drag his steps over them. In the
darkness he struck his naked foot
against one sharp flint that was larger
than the rest; he stumbled, and with a
low cry fell headlong upon the jagged
surface. His hands were wounded, and
the blood trickled from them in the dark,
wetting the stones more quickly than did
the falling snow; his face, too, had been
cut. For some moments he struggled to
rise, but he was too weak, too utterly spent,
Then he rolled upon one side and rested
his bruised face upon his torn hands,
and lay quite still, while the wind howled
louder, and the snow flakes fell more
thickly upon his rags and his wounds,
upon the sorrows of his soul and the
pains of his body. One long breath he
drew; it was more than an hour since he
had fallen. "God be merciful to mel"
he murmured: and again, "God be merci-
full to me, for think it is the end"
And the angel Of the Lord came in the
storm and the darkness, and touched his
forehead, and it was the end. The snow
buried him that night, and the north
wind sang his funeral dirge.